Steven Ng-Sheong Cheung, because of his adventure with the legal system – not despite it – sets a high standard for economists. The economics profession is often accused of concocting clever theories that don't resonate in the lives of real people. Professor Cheung devised a theory about man's struggle with corruption and governments. He wrote about his theory, with relish. The US government shone a spotlight on Professor Cheung's thoughts, when it issued a warrant for his arrest.

Back in 1996 Professor Cheung – who was then head of the University of Hong Kong's School of Economics and Finance, and an economist at the University of Washington in Seattle, in the US – published a paper called A Simplistic General Equilibrium Theory of Corruption, in the journal Contemporary Economic Policy.

The very first sentence of that paper says: "The author's simplistic view of corruption is that all politicians and government officials – like everyone else – are constrained self-maximizers. They therefore establish or maintain regulations and controls with the intent to facilitate corruption, which then becomes a source of income for them."

Professor Cheung dives deep into the matter. A few pages later he explains: "I made the now famous statement that it is no use to put a beautiful woman in my bedroom, naked, and ask me not to be aroused. I said that the only effective way of getting rid of corruption is to get rid of the controls and regulations that give rise to corruption opportunities."

"A federal grand jury returned an indictment against the CHEUNGs on January 28, 2003. STEVEN N.S. CHEUNG was named in all thirteen counts of the indictment, charging him with Conspiracy to Defraud the United States, six counts of filing false income tax returns, and six counts of filing false foreign bank account reports."

These days Professor Cheung lives in China, where he is a newspaper columnist and blogger, having joined a new profession that enjoys almost as much public confidence and respect as his old one.

Thanks to Yoram Bauman for bringing this to my attention.

• Marc Abrahams is editor of the bimonthly Annals of Improbable Research and organiser of the Ig Nobel prize